Bennu Asteroid Sample Reveals Building Blocks of Life: Amino Acids and Evidence of Water

Bennu Asteroid Sample Reveals Building Blocks of Life: Amino Acids and Evidence of Water

In a groundbreaking discovery that could rewrite our understanding of the origins of life, scientists analyzing the asteroid Bennu sample returned to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission have found molecules crucial to life as we know it, including amino acids. These findings, published in the prestigious journals Nature and Nature Astronomy, not only confirm the presence of these essential building blocks but also reveal evidence of an ancient, water-rich environment on Bennu's parent asteroid, bolstering the theory that the seeds of life may have been sown across the early solar system. Unveiling the Secrets of Bennu: A Treasure Trove of Prebiotic Molecules The OSIRIS-REx mission, a remarkable feat of space engineering, successfully collected a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and returned it to Earth in September 2023. Since then, scientists from NASA and institutions worldwide have been meticulously analyzing the sample, unlocking a treasure trove of information abou…